Monday, June 06, 2016

LOS ANGELES -- Hoping to supply music to the plate umpire's ears, Los Angeles Dodgers players used Joe West songs as walk-up music during their first at-bats Sunday.

West, the longtime umpire who has two country albums to his credit, was behind the plate for Sunday's game between the Dodgers and the Atlanta Braves. At one point, West could be seen on the Dodger Stadium video board laughing inside his umpire mask.

"You noticed that? That was a little ode to the cowboy," Dodgers manager Dave Roberts said after his team's 12-6 win to complete the series sweep.

"That was Chase [Utley]'s idea," Roberts added. "We could only find six songs, though, so we had to kind of loop them. I think Joe enjoyed that."

The Dodgers had 14 hits yesterday, which is about 14 more than West has had. But if you want to inflict your own sort of right-down-the-middle-strike pain, here you go.